


fills columns to new heights

by orthostatics



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming Out, F/F, Identity Reveal, Kwami Swap, That's just how it is sometimes, Trans Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Trans Female Character, adrien freaks out a lot, coming out to yourself (with weird magic), kwami swap in an alternate late s1/early s2, trans themes, transfeminine character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25368166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orthostatics/pseuds/orthostatics
Summary: “Purifying the akuma, restoring the street, was special. Full of light and easy confidence. What he’d always imagined being Ladybug was like."Ladybug, called away from a fight, gives Chat her earrings. Being Ladybug brings up a lot of things Adrien hadn't previously known about himself. Well, one in particular.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 28
Kudos: 231





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in a sort of nebulously alternate early canon, as my own very different take on kwami swap. Let me reiterate the trans themes tag! This is basically a magic-enhanced slowly-coming-out-to-yourself-as-trans story; there are some semi-spoilery TWs relating to that in the endnotes.

“Chat, you need to take it!” Ladybug said, sounding desperate.

“What?” he said, horrified. He’d misheard her, he must have misheard her—

“No, seriously,” she said, “I have it all worked out, we’ll just drop down here and hide and then we can trade, so no risk of whatever terrible thing that would happen if you had both Miraculous at once, God only knows. Then I head off as a civilian, while you _don’t look, Chat_ , and you’re here in case it needs to get purified. I’m sorry, Chat, I’m so sorry to leave you like this, but I have to go _right now_ , you know I wouldn’t if this wasn’t vital.” She scanned the horizon as she spoke. They’d ditched the akuma pretty thoroughly, and this one was already pretty distractible, from what he’d seen before they ran off. But it still paid to be careful: he could almost hear that thought in Ladybug’s voice, if he hadn’t been busy feeling all that horror.

“I’m not—” and for one lurching moment he thought the next word out of his mouth would be _worthy._ He coughed. Time to get himself together, like someone who could play it cool for literally one goddamn second. “I’m not ready, milady. I don’t know how to use the yo-yo like you do, I really don’t know if—”

“You’ll be fine, _chaton_ , it’s like riding a bicycle. You smash your knees badly enough, maybe your face a little, after that you start to figure it out pretty quick.” She jumped down to a lower roof, just two stories, gripped the edge, and dropped.

Adrien followed. “Me-ouch, is really that how that went for you?”

“Of course not!” she said, turning her face away to search the alley for cover. “You remember, _chaton._ I was a natural.”

She was behind a dumpster and detransformed before he could say anything, the graffiti illuminated, strangely lovely, in the flash of pink light. 

“Sorry, Tikki”, he heard her say. The reply came in familiar unearthly kwami tones— “It’s all right! I’ll be fine with Chat. Good luck,”—and then it cut off abruptly. 

She held them out to him. Her arm stretched out from behind the dumpster. He tried not to study the dark cuff of her— shirt? jacket? It wasn’t going to tell him anything about her, and there were more important matters. Ladybug’s earrings were in front of him, cradled in Ladybug’s bare palm.

He detransformed fast. Adrien pulled off the ring and dropped it into Ladybug’s hand— _her bare hand_ — and grabbed the earrings. Then he froze. Was he supposed to pierce his ears? Now? In an alley? He nearly looked around for needles before they shimmered a little and changed into clip-ons. Adrien’s hands shook as he put them on, expecting to feel different, somehow. Instead the ladybug kwami burst into existence and immediately laughed at him. 

“Sorry, Adrien,” she trilled, “you just look so worried about it. They’re only earrings.”

“You know who I am?” he said.

“Of course.” She paused. “Through magic.”

Adrien nodded— right, obviously, magic— and turned on his heel. 

“I’ll have it back to you soon, Milady,” he called. “You do what you need to do.” 

He took one breath, tried to smirk. Chat Noir, he thought, it’s just like being Chat Noir, I’ll just be red Chat Noir. Everything’s fine. I’m a hero, I’m ready for this, I’m Chat Noir but red, baby! Chat Noir-et-Rouge, out on the town, defeating this akuma all by my red-hot self!

“Tikki,” he said, “spots on!” He thought he heard his lady’s footsteps for a moment, retreating down the alley, and then the transformation took him. His own pink light.

* * *

As soon as the sparks cleared, Adrien leapt back up to the roof and bounded back toward where they’d left the akuma. He felt dizzy with fear, unbalanced. Apparently, as Chat Noir, he relied a lot on the claws for handholds; he had to try and use sheer grip strength to make up the difference.

Actually, he thought, frowning, his whole center of balance was off. What he’d thought was vertigo from the absolute yawning terror of having to _be Ladybug_ was maybe just regular vertigo. He kept using the wrong amount of strength to swing himself around. Adrien hadn’t seriously worried about falling while he ran since his first night with the ring; was something wrong with his transformation? Maybe the earrings could tell he wasn’t clever enough to do the job,  he thought miserably.

Okay. Okay. Focus on the akuma. He still wasn’t sure what this one was even about— he’d only seen the beginnings from a distance, when the street started to plow up and something wiggly and enormous emerged, with a rider on its back. They’d barely caught a glimpse of it before Ladybug had grabbed his wrist and run. He paused when he could hear it close up, apparently smashing cars along the Rue Saint-Martin, and peeked around the corner. Yes, there it was: the giant worm, transparent and shuddery, and the rider, face obscured, shouting for Ladybug and Chat Noir to come face her. Adrien crouched and ran along the roofs parallel to the street, trying to get in close enough to spot where the butterfly might be hidden. The butterfly he would have to purify. Without his lady.

Up close he was getting worried that the rider’s mask wasn’t a mask; there were beady eyes, no nose, and— was that supposed to be a worm’s mouth? Holy shit, _was_ that what a worm’s mouth looked like? That was awful, there were lumps and a round sucking hole and _spikes_? Adrien spared a moment from wishing he wasn’t about to fail as Ladybug to wish this akuma was literally anything else. Anything? Maybe Gamer again, that was great, all Adrien had to do was fall over and turn into digital cubes. Cubes sound awesome right now. Adrien would love to be cubes. 

He sighed, half-stood behind someone’s rooftop garden, and didn’t notice the worm’s tail slamming into the building until he’d already overbalanced. Arms flailing, he drew the yo-yo with cat-like reflexes, wrapped it around a balcony railing, and then cleverly fell off the roof anyway.

It only seemed reasonable to call out to the akuma, now that he was on a collision course. Something really hilarious and distracting, obviously.

“Hey, watch _meow_ -t where you’re waving that thing!” 

Hang on— was his voice different? He was pretty sure his voice was different. Not a different pitch, quite, but smoother. Rounder? Could voices be round? Maybe just more resonant. Commanding, like Ladybug should sound. He was still worrying about it when he slammed into the worm’s side, but he put his elbow into the hit anyway, just for the sake of trying.

The giant round worm thing had some give, under him, but when he pulled back, trying to cling to its strange, smooth-scaled sides, there wasn’t even a mark where he’d hit. So: new plan needed, or even just “a plan.”

There was a weird little platform thing up near the worm’s head, where the akuma was riding. If he kept his hold and anchored the yo-yo on the building next to him, he could swing around, catch hold of the platform, and get a good look at the akuma, maybe even grab her object before she shook him off. At least then he’d have a better idea of where it might be. Adrien nodded to himself. This was a _good_ plan. He was making _progress._ Like Ladybug would! Adrien waited until the rider was in clear view. In an easy arc, he swung out his arm, deployed the yo-yo, and let go of the worm.

He sailed right over the akuma’s head and toward the building across the street.

The roof lurched up at him. He landed well, at least, tucking into a roll, feeling only barely jarred. Then he just lay on his back, panting. That hadn’t been just because he didn’t understand the yo-yo, that time, or even just the way he seemed slightly off-balance. He’d had that jump, he knew he had. Maybe the aerodynamics of the suit were different. No boots as Ladybug, right? No pockets or belt or whatever— and for the first time, setting aside his terror, Adrien looked down at himself in the suit.

It’s subtle. To anyone else it would seem subtle. But Adrien’s a model; he knows his measurements, his proportions, how clothing looks on him. And the width of his hips was different. His arms and shoulders seemed slimmer, longer somehow. His chest, curved slightly more than pectoral muscle alone would do, that was different. That was new. That probably would throw him off-balance, now that he mentioned it.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, he thought. Ladybug. _Lady_ bug. LADYbug? _Ladybug_. Did she expect his? Did anyone expect this? Was he supposed to know this was coming? Maybe Ladybug _has_ to be a girl. His hair, as far as he could tell, was the same, just smoothed down, more like Adrien’s hair than Chat’s. Maybe a little longer. There weren’t any mirrors on the roof, Adrien noticed. But it seemed like he was a girl now. He was a girl. Okay. That was a fine thing to happen. Stuff happens all the time. He’d been cubes once; that was weirder than being a girl. He was a girl. Ladybug! A girl who was Ladybug. A girl fighting a giant worm akuma. _Oh shit, fighting an akuma._

He bolted up, arms windmilling. The akuma had abandoned straight-out property damage in favor of using what was, apparently, her power: turning things into clear piles of… something. She zapped a car as he watched. It went translucent and collapsed, first all in a rush and then very slowly, the heap flattening into a uniform layer like honey spreading over the street. Then she turned her head toward him.

“LADYBUG,” she screamed. “Or whoever you are. HAND IT OVER.”

“Hand what over?” Adrien said automatically. “You should really be specific about these things. Oh, is this what you wanted?” 

He threw a planter at her.

She and the worm ducked simultaneously. Then she wheeled all the way around to face him. The worm’s horrible head swung forward.

“Don’t get CUTE,” she said. “Give me your Miraculous, unless you want to learn a LOT about worms.”

“This has already been way too educational, thanks,” he said, and backed up a few paces. On the one hand, he really didn’t want to get zapped; on the other hand, maybe he’d get a chance to see what she was zapping with. Sure enough, she raised what he thought, squinting, was an automatic pipettor, like what they used in biology labs. He spent a moment congratulating himself— that was _definitely_ specific enough to be her possessed object. Then he remembered to dodge.

The chimney behind him exploded in a shower of… stuff. At first he thought the gunk was made of some kind of tiny, whitish grains of sand. Then he looked closer, where it had splashed onto his arm as he dodged. They weren’t sand, they were… they were…

Okay, they were really, really small worms. That actually seemed kind of predictable now that he thought about it. 

Someone else started shouting, down at street level. 

“Hey! Hey! Akuma! Who are you? What’s your deal?”

Adrien froze. Alya was down there. Alya was… definitely going to be taking video of this. Sure, more importantly, Alya was antagonizing the akuma from twenty feet away, but he no longer had any expectation of being able to prevent that.

“I am Elegante!” the akuma yelled. “And I want your miraculous, Ladybug!”

“Sorry, nothing doing!” he said. “Alya! Get out of here! It’s not safe, you’ll get turned into worms!”

Alya, of course, ignored him. “Why are you called Elegante if you’re doing, like, a worm thing?” she yelled.

The akuma screamed, which was— wow, okay, super upsetting to watch. “It’s the SPECIES NAME! _Caenorhabditis elegans_ , okay? It’s a roundworm, we’ve needed them for almost every genuinely important advancement ever made in the biological sciences, this is why education is vital! Put this on your blog, tell people to advocate for funding basic science research!”

The akuma, her whole upper body twisted around to face the street, was apparently deeply distracted by lecturing Alya on the history of genetics. Adrien edged behind another chimney. 

“Okay,” he muttered to himself, “I think I’ve found the object, I want this to end _fast_.” He’d never been sure how much the kwami could hear when they were transformed. Plagg, when asked, had laughed: “Kid, you think I listen to anything you say?” The unhelpfulness of that statement had only been underlined by being obviously false. But he hoped Tikki could hear him. Maybe she’d help him, later. “I want to get the pipettor, I don’t want Alya to turn into worms, I _want_ to stay off camera but that can’t be my first priority, but like, maybe it can be my third or fourth, okay? That’s allowed? I should… Ladybug would… Ladybug would… uh.” He squeezed his eyes shut. He took a shaky breath. “Ladybug would do this. _Please_ help me out, Tikki. _Lucky Charm!”_

He forced himself to look up and catch the object as it came down. Which was good, because it was a bowling ball.

“Uhhhhhh.” He paused. He looked around. He paused again, hopefully. There was a street, there were buildings, there were fewer cars now that some of them were thousands of worms. There were some shops. Not many people. Alya, presumably, since the akuma was still lecturing, though he didn’t want to lean out far enough to check. “Tikki, you _know_ I’m not Ladybug. Not really, anyway. I’m not going to pull out some amazing guess here. Is this depending on knowing about worms? That’s _not_ fair.” He took another ragged breath. He was supposed to be lucky like this, right? Maybe that was what he needed. Just look around again, whatever you see first…

On the other side of the street, a few buildings down, the open-air section of a produce market was unavoidably eye-catching. Apricots were piled up in the hot-orange-turning-brown that suggested fruit already overripe. Not that his father ever allowed an overripe fruit into the house, but he’d snuck off to buy food with Nino a few times. He was learning about ripening fruit. And groceries generally. All kinds of stuff, really. But the fruit stand was what had caught his eye, so that’s what his luck—Ladybug’s luck—wanted him to bowling ball.

Adrien sprinted out from behind the chimney, trying to keep both Alya and the akuma from getting a clear shot. It worked on the akuma, at least: she started shooting at him again when he broke cover, but he’d caught her off-guard, and she wasn’t aiming well. Distracted, maybe, by her real cause, and accordingly less prepared to steal his earrings. He had to stand still for a second, to wind up the bowling ball, but she wasn’t expecting that either: she wormified a section of roof several feet ahead of him. The last few minutes had finally started to orient him to his slightly altered limbs. The ball sailed straight. The fruit trays collapsed in neat sequence. The street, already full of worms, flowed with fruit.

For a moment, nothing happened. Adrien danced away from another, better-aimed shot without thinking, but his attention was on the akuma herself, who seemed unmoved by rolling cantaloupe. Possibly he’d made a terrible mistake. He was already imagining how he’d get the bowling ball back out of the wreckage of the fruit stand when the giant worm’s head began to twitch. Its mouth seemed to retract in and out. It convulsed, almost randomly. Then it dove for the fruit.

The akuma shrieked, unbalanced. Her arms flew up above her head. And Adrien, his heart in his mouth, dizzy with gratitude, shot out his yo-yo and knocked the pipettor out of her hand. 

It smashed on the street. Jumping down to catch the butterfly felt instinctual at last. Purifying it, restoring the street, was special. Full of light and easy confidence. What he’d always imagined being Ladybug was like. He laughed, his new Ladybug laugh in his altered voice, staring up at the afterimages of magic crawling over the buildings. The _fixed_ buildings! Whole and perfect. And he’d done it, he’d done it by himself. Healed everyone. Wiped the city clean.

When he dropped his gaze Alya was staring at him from across the street. Delight in her eyes. Camera in her hand.

“Who are _you_? What happened to _Ladybug_?” and she had almost reached him by the time he remembered to turn and run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: Elegante is exaggerating about the importance of C. elegans to biological science. While they are a highly versatile and useful model for a lot of biological processes, especially in genetics, developmental biology, and neurology, they were first studied in the 1970s, and biology research started much earlier than that. Her overstatements are definitely irresponsible science education practice, but in her defense, she is a possessed supervillain with a worm face.


	3. Chapter 3

Alya was more than usually determined in her superhero pursuit tonight, which was saying a lot. On the one hand, Adrien couldn’t blame her. A new, blonde Ladybug, fighting alone, was news if anything was, and Alya wouldn’t be Alya if she didn’t try to find out what happened. On the other hand, he _totally could_ blame her, because what kind of person chases Ladybug across five city blocks? A _villain_ , that’s who. Watching Alya, totally unpowered, climb up a drainpipe after him had been deeply disturbing to watch, and not only because she’d somehow managed to keep her camera aimed at him between her teeth as she did it. If it weren’t clearly impossible he’d be moving her up the list of Hawkmoth candidates.

He finally shook her over a congested roundabout before circling back to the alley where Ladybug had left him. He reached the dumpster just seconds before his transformation dropped. More pink light again, and when he looked down it was just himself. His normal body, in the same shirt-over-a-shirt as always.

Tikki twirled around before coming to hover next to his head. “Adrien—”

He held up a hand. “Sorry, can you just—can I have a second?” He didn’t wait for her response before putting his head between his knees. He thought, dimly, that he might be panicking.

After about thirty seconds, tiny hands shook his shoulder. “Hey, Adrien? Adrien, it’s okay! You did a great job! I mean it, a really great job! I’m sooo proud of you! Maybe take slower breaths? I can count for you or something? Really, though, a super good job! See if you can stretch an inhale for three or four seconds!”

Adrien could hear her over the rushing in his ears. When he opened his mouth he didn’t respond. His heart rate, he thought, seemed fast. Faster than usual. He should probably reply to Tikki.

“Come on! It’s okay! Plagg would have told me if you had asthma, probably! So everything’s fine!”

It took several more breaths for him to slow down enough to speak, but, he figured, replying to a kwami was important, like talking to a teacher, or his father. So he needed to put in the effort.

“When I transformed—” his voice rasped at first. He coughed a few times. “Why did I look like that? When I was Ladybug.”

Tikki smiled. “Oh, that was what you wanted!”

“What?”

Tikki tilted her head. “Well, when I transform someone for the first time I try to get a sense of what they want, you know? How you want to look. It’s a very special moment, when a kwami and a holder decide together who the new hero will be!”

“I don’t think I remember being asked.”

“Oh! Well. It’s nothing as simple as _asking_. You might not know how to answer! I have to really understand you. It’s magic!” She bobbed in the air.

“So.” Adrien said, slowly. “You’re saying that you looked in my brain. To see what I wanted, and who I really wanted to be, as the strongest, luckiest hero version of myself. And it was… that. And there’s nothing saved in the Ladybug miraculous? No, like, factory settings?”

“Oh, well, the red and black color scheme is pretty standard, obviously, and… well, I have to admit that I just really like the yoyo. It’s a weapon _and_ a hobby! That’s it, though. Everything else I get from you! So we can build it together!”

“Tikki, I was a girl.”

“Yes!”

Adrien looked at her.

“And you did great!” She seemed particularly anxious to emphasize that point. “Really, really impressive job, especially for your first time out!”

Adrien tried to say something. He wasn’t sure what. It didn’t really matter; it came out as a soundless wheeze, like he’d been elbowed in the chest.

Then he _felt_ like he’d been elbowed in the chest, too: footsteps, above him, and a voice, calling out. “Chat? Are you here? I came as fast as I could. Everything okay?”

Tikki twirled again. “It’s so special, getting to work with a new Ladybug for the first time! Getting to know you was wonderful, Adrien!” Then she spiraled upward, calling. “Here I am, Ladybug! Everything’s fine, the akuma’s already purified! Chat did _great_.”

Adrien waited, hugging his knees, while Tikki told Ladybug where to hide so she could hand over the ring.

He didn’t say anything else until about halfway through the walk home.

“Plagg?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever go on the internet?”

“What? No. Why would I care?”

“Okay,” Adrien said. “Sounds good.”

—

No matter how many times Adrien checked his appearance in the limo, he felt sure he looked disheveled, crumpled with sleeplessness and weird shame. He'd kept almost falling asleep, watching dark shapes float through his closed eyes, and then, like an electric shock: _they’ll know._ It was ridiculous, of course. Nobody would look at Adrien and know anything.

Alya and Nino were already in class, hunched over her phone. She looked up. “Adrien! Do you know what happened last night?” He caught his breath, but she went on without waiting. “There was an akuma fight but the Ladybug who came out to fight wasn’t actually Ladybug! Come on, come look.”

On Alya’s phone, Ladybug ran a few steps and tucked into a neat roll to dodge. Even from several stories down, you could see this Ladybug was blond, with a hairstyle more like Rose’s pixie cut than Adrien’s civilian hair, and— he’d missed this— a red ribbon tied around her neck, so that the suit’s neckline sat lower, just above the collarbone. The costume was mostly the same, but with a black shape down each side, curved to imply a waist. When Ladybug turned you could see the black shapes on her back too, extending over her shoulder blades, almost like wings.

“I just wish I knew who it was _,_ ” Alya said. “My first guess was that Ladybug gave her earrings to Chat, and that _could_ still be right. But up close they didn’t look quite like Chat, you know? I mean—” She swiped over to a still image, from when she’d nearly caught him on the street. “The costume makes it hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure this person has a different build than Chat. I actually think it might be a girl? But in that case I have no clue who it could be.”

Something occurred to him, something he’d tried thinking about last night during his third hour of no sleep. “Did— so nobody saw Chat Noir?”

Alya huffed. “No! And it would have been so helpful for my theories! Like, obviously if Chat looked like a girl with black hair, we’d know they just switched. But he definitely wasn’t there for the end of the fight, at least. I had one commenter say they thought they saw Chat but ‘his tail looked weird’, but who knows what that means?”

Nino shrugged. “I just hope they’re both okay.”

“Yeah, like, what if Ladybug had to pass on her powers because something _terrible_ happened. Maybe Hawkmoth caught them, and she just barely got rid of her Miraculous, and now we’re never going to see either of them again?”

Alya’s question had to go unanswered for the moment. Marinette sprinted into the room barely half a second before Mme. Bustier. He heard a short burst of whispering as she sat down— “Did you _see_ ” “Yeah, but later” “but what if” “at lunch?” — and then class started.

Adrien stared at the board during the lecture. He used a pen to write notes. He swallowed, several times. He listened to the lecture, each word moving through his mind individually. He composed several sentences about the material. He took long, deep, completely silent breaths. He bit the inside of his cheek. By third period he felt almost entirely normal.

He nearly lost it again at lunch, when he overheard Alya and Marinette setting off for Marinette’s house.

“It’s definitely just Chat, Al. Who else would Ladybug trust enough to give her earrings to?”

“Yeah, but… I really think they look different.”

“Not that different. Short blond hair, tall, green eyes?”

Alya scoffed. “Sure, but— look, I’ll show you side-by-side comparisons at lunch. I swear…”

By the time he caught up with Nino he’d unclenched his hands. He smiled. He knew it looked natural.


	4. Chapter 4

The edge of the roof was digging into Adrien’s thighs. He shifted back an inch. It didn’t help; there was only so much you could do with decorative carved stone. He was listening, he told himself, for anything that might be the warning sign of an akuma attack. A yell. Breaking glass. Whatever. It was hard when he was so on edge, though— he was aware, but not the clear, open awareness that came in his best moments in battle. More like sitting in his room, ready to flinch his laptop off as soon as he heard the first footstep up the stairs.

Ladybug arrived less silently than usual, which was thoughtful of her.

“Chat? Hi!”

He leapt up to his feet as he turned around. She froze for a single second, and then frowned, very slightly. He glanced down at himself, paranoid, even though he’d already spent dangerous minutes checking his reflection in his room after he’d transformed. He was definitely the same as always. When he looked up she was smiling again, recovering on the dismount.

“I am so, so, so sorry for leaving you to fight the akuma by yourself on Monday. I hope you understand why I can’t tell you details, but it really was a family emergency, and I swear, if I had any way to get back faster than I did, I would have.”

“I— of course you would, my lady,” he said. “I understand completely. You must have responsibilities to lots of people. And I can definitely hold an akuma off! You made the right call. I wouldn’t let you down.”

“You did more than hold it off!” She laughed and took his hands for a moment. “You were brilliant! I watched on, ah, the Ladyblog, afterward— distracting the giant worm was totally genius.”

Chat laughed a little. “It was Tikki’s idea more than mine. I wasn’t expecting a bowling ball, either— I almost didn’t catch it. It could have gone, _fwoom_ ,” he dropped down and smacked the stone at his feet, “right through the roof into somebody’s apartment. I could have ruined their home _and_ your brand! Ladybug’s not supposed to cause paw-purr-ty damage.”

She shook her head. “Too many puns in one word, kitten. Fumbled it on the dismount.”

“Oh, do you do gymnastics, bug? Is that part of how you stay so limber and ready to pounce?”

“Maybe _you_ need to, kitten,” she said. “I like to watch it sometimes, but I already told you! I’m a natural, remember? Tikki—” another almost imperceptible pause— “Tikki says as long as there’s a base idea to work with, a kwami can bring out physical potential without needing us to keep it up ourselves as civilians. Which is good,” she said in a rush, “because with a schedule like mine, I don’t know how I’d ever find time to stay this flexible by myself.” She did a backflip over the vent behind her, landing in a deep lunge. He applauded wildly as she bowed.

“Shall we tour the city, my lady?” he asked. She nodded. He held out a hand to pull her up.

They got through almost twenty minutes of running without talking much— Ladybug would hear something, or Chat would see a flash of colored light, and the other would pause to wait for trouble almost without needing to be told. The night was quiet. A few people still milled around below, even this late. Chat started to feel that other, better alertness, able to filter out Ladybug’s running steps, pedestrian chatter, the wind through trees in the park. Everything was going to be fine. It was a beautiful night for a rooftop jog.

A wide northwestern circle brought them eventually to Montmartre.

“Want to go up to Sacre-Coeur?” Chat asked. “We should really take more advantage of being the only people in the city who can climb all the way up without leg cramps.”

Ladybug bit her lip. “Actually— can we stay here a second?”

“Of course, my lady. What’s the matter, do you need to head back soon?” Chat winked. “Have I worn you out with my boundless athleticism?”

She snorted and shook her head. “Well, I should get some more sleep tonight still, but I just wanted to ask…”

He waited.

“I talked to Tikki a bit, in the last few days.”

Adrien felt the ease drain back out of his limbs.

“What she said…” Ladybug looked down, then back up at him. “I was a little surprised to see you tonight. I mean, to see you looking just the same as always.”

“What? I’m Chat Noir, my lady!” He struck a ridiculous pose, one arm cocked over his head, and held it a beat too long. “This is how I always look. I’m iconic! Can’t be messed with.”

“But, you… Tikki said,” Ladybug said carefully, “and I could see, that you looked different. With the earrings. You looked more like— a Ladybug. And she said that she thought that was how you would view yourself, if you were lucky. And— I don’t want to assume, but I thought maybe you felt… you might want….”

He shook his head fervently. “I think Tikki might have been confused, my Lady. I wanted to be the perfect Ladybug, of course! I can’t help if it I expect the best Ladybug possible to be more like you than me.” He spread his hands out, shrugged, feeling the muscles in his shoulders push against the magic leather. He liked that, he thought. The little bit of resistance. It felt safe, more like armor than a suit.

“I—” She paused. She looked— skeptical. Conflicted. Bewildered. It would be embarrassing to be caught idolizing her like this if it were anyone else. He could see how she wouldn’t expect it, even knowing how much he adored her. But surely his lady could understand how someone could want to embody her values, her strengths, in every way they could.

“It’s…” he rubbed the back of his head. “It’s a little embarrassing, honestly. I know I’m the president of the Ladybug fanclub, but I can’t have anyone thinking I’m a copycat! So I tried not to end up on camera too much, but I guess that didn’t work out. Sorry, my lady. I hope it won’t cause too much purr-plexity.”

Ladybug gave him a long look, but nodded. “It’s fine, kitten, of course. Please don’t worry about it for a second.” She drew her yoyo. “Heading back toward the 21 st ?”

“After you, my lady.” He bowed. She sprang. He followed.

— 

Adrien groped for a towel in the dark. Repeated akuma-related excuses had apparently convinced the household staff that he showered as an anxiety management technique. This was embarrassing, but at least they probably wouldn’t report it if they heard him bathing at two in the morning. Still, he didn’t want to push it by turning on a light someone could see under his door. Once the water was out of his eyes there would be enough moonlight to navigate to bed.

It wasn’t usual for him to need to shower after patrol. A fight, sure: even if Ladybug magically erased all evidence that he’d been covered in zombie slime, it still felt wrong not to wash it off. But patrol wasn’t really even supposed to take effort. Sometime over the course of this one, though, he’d broken out in a light sweat; and it was good to be clean, he reasoned. He’d still get nearly five hours of sleep if he had breakfast in the limo.

Adrien pulled on his pajamas, folded next to the sink, and turned to open the door. Out of the corner of his eye, a blond person, hair slicked down with water, shirt a little too large, did the same. His reflection, obviously. Adrien walked, automatically silent, across to his bed.

He might as well not have bothered with the shower. In bed he could feel his heart rate rising again. He would probably start sweating any second. He knew why it had happened, of course; these pajamas were brand-new, a new cut, with a wider neckline. His hair was longer than usual, while his father waited to decide on the final outfit for the F/W line, and therefore what hairstyle to give him. But whatever the excuse, it had still happened. He’d seen his reflection and thought, _Oh. The new Ladybug. There she is._


	5. Chapter 5

Time and repetition helped everything. Over the next two months Ladybug and Chat Noir, easy and synchronized, dispatched five akuma and averted one close shave with Chloé and a charity benefit attendee. (Adrien, already onsite, hit the butterfly repeatedly with a woman’s hat from the Spring 2017 Maison Margiela collection until Ladybug arrived. The benefit was saved, the hat was damaged irretrievably. He wasn’t sure if his father had seen or not, but he secretly hoped Gabriel would be proud of him.)

Alya tried twice more to corner them for an interview on the blonde Ladybug. The first time, they really did have to leave before they detransformed. The second time, she cornered them with the full five minutes left, and clearly knew it. Ladybug froze, and then turned to him, looking stricken.

“Obviously, to protect everyone involved, we can’t elaborate on any details of any additional assistance we may or may not solicit in the course of our duty,” Adrien said, feeling confident and reasonable. “You can rest assured that the Ladybug who assisted us against Elegante has our full trust, and we’re not planning any long-term changes to our lineup.”

“Oh!” Alya said, taken aback. “Um, Ladybug! Do you have any—”

“Sorry, gotta go!” Ladybug said. “Bye, Alya!”

“You know that wasn’t really a cover story, right?” she’d asked, before they split to detransform.

“Who needs a cover story, milady?” he said, and shrugged. “Why give Hawkmoth any more information than we have to?”

“Huh.” She looked at him— was it too bold to say affectionately? “Good answer, then. See you later, kitten.”

That, as far as Adrien was concerned, was the end of it. For everyone else, anyway. _He_ just had to not think about it, and he was the only one who could tell if he succeeded. By May, Ladybug had stopped significantly pausing whenever she mentioned Tikki, their powers, bodies, or how she was thinking about maybe growing out her hair. It was a real relief to Adrien, who was freed up to only consider the regular subtext of their conversations, about whether he was going to need to apologize for doing something really stupid around her again.

* * *

It was amazing, Adrien thought, watching Ladybug run, the way bravado and terror seemed to be the same emotion. He just wished keeping the terror under control didn’t let the bravado get everywhere. It didn’t feel right, the way he could occasionally feel himself coming on too strong, but it didn’t seem like there was any other way to do it. And she understood, anyway: that he was sorry about it, and that he was in love with her. There wasn’t anything else to do about it except keep trying, and remember what worked to make her laugh, and wait to hear what she wanted to do. Which was great already. He was lucky just to know her, he thought, watching how confidently she ran, how easily she leapt from roof to roof.

The building just ahead of them blew up.

Adrien screamed a little, which seemed very normal and reasonable. He also stumbled into Ladybug, who’d stopped short to brace herself against the shock. He reeled back; she reached back to grab him and pulled him in, holding him against her side.

“All right, kitten? Are you hurt?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry— I’m totally fine. Are you all right, my lady?”

“I think so,” she said. “I feel fine. And I think we found the akuma!”

“Yeah, you know, I’m purr-retty sure we did.”

He leaned into her for moment, taking a deep breath, feeling her lean her cheek against his hair. Then he straightened up.

“Ready, Chat?”

“Ready, my lady.”

This akuma was, unsurprisingly, really into exploding stuff. Adrien felt this was overly straightforward, as an akuma power. Was that the possessed person being vicious, or was Hawkmoth just totally phoning it in this week? It wasn’t totally clear to him how much each of them brought to the table— how much did Hawkmoth need to know about any given person’s problems? What if the person he akumatized was just really bad at fighting? Probably best never to be in a position to figure that out. Could they even get akumatized? He thought probably Ladybug couldn’t— she seemed so much more on top of her feelings, her reactions, even before you considered that she was probably literally the luckiest person in existence. He, on the other hand, was a total mess, and also— okay. Adrien had to be totally honest. He didn’t actually know what it meant for him to be the embodiment of bad luck, because on the one hand, sure, destroying stuff, not usually great, but on the other hand they’d never actually lost a fight? Plagg had been characteristically unhelpful about it, like anything else that was abstract or that he just didn’t immediately want to be seeing in front of him. Maybe he was just really bad luck for like, akumas? Destroyable structures and possessed accessories?

I’m definitely a possessed accessory’s worst nightmare, he decided. Huge bad omen, for them. That’s me.

“Chat!” His lady waved. “I want to herd him toward the river, it might be a little harder to find things to destroy. There’s too much shrapnel flying around here, I can’t get close enough!”

Adrien nodded and bowed elaborately. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello? _Monsieur d’explosif?_ I heard you wanted something of mine, but you’ll have to come and get it!” He did a couple of cartwheels, just to be sure the akuma could see him, and then launched himself around the corner, running south.

He heard the thudding footsteps of the akuma follow him. “Give me your Miraculous,” he said, in a rasping, almost metallic voice, “and Ladybug’s too, and just maybe I won’t raze you like the rest of this disgusting city.”

“Famous _blast_ words, monsieur!” He paused as he reached the next turn, wanting the akuma to keep him in sight, and turned, waiting. Ladybug had dropped back out of reach while he ran, and was following a few paces behind the akuma, scanning for new threats, or structural problems, or—

She’d seen something she didn’t like. He followed her gaze down to where a group of young women— tourists, probably, not familiar with akuma evacuation protocols— were huddled ineffectually in the doorway of a closed shop. Adrien started to turn back, but she shook her head at him. So far the akuma could only see Chat; there was too much risk that he’d draw its attention to the women he was trying to save. He _knew_ that, but this wasn’t supposed to be Ladybug’s job; she should be focusing on taking the akuma down, he was supposed to manage the environment and the akuma’s attention. She started to climb quietly down a facade, edging toward where the women would be able to see her but the akuma wouldn’t.

“I’m here!” he called. “Are you going to come get me or what?” The akuma was slow, heavy, a gigantic man entirely covered in some kind of metal cladding. He moved forward a few paces at Adrien waved frantically, almost jumping up and down.

“I said,” the akuma screamed, and paused. Adrien could see him thinking, and didn’t like that at all. He rushed forward a bit.

“I’m going to take you down, no matter how many little fireworks Hawkmoth gave you!” The akuma's face changed. He looked angrier. Come on, Adrien thought, charge me, charge me, you know you want to crush me like some kind of insect pun, come on...

“ _I said give me your Miraculous_ ,” the akuma bellowed, and he turned and punched the building next to him, just as Ladybug reached across for the next handhold. Beneath her, the facade crumbled in; Adrien watched, heart in his mouth, as she swung freely for a few moments, but kept her grip. He relaxed. She was fine; the tourists, seeing an opportunity, were sprinting for an alley while the akuma’s back was turned. Now he just needed to get in close, distract him for a few seconds—

The akuma’s fist, embedded in the building, exploded. The building collapsed forward, half-burying the akuma in rubble. Ladybug was thrown across the street, and fell, and stayed there.


	6. Chapter 6

“Ladybug,” he whispered. “My lady, wake up, come on. Please? Purr-retty please? See, I already used that pun today, you hate when I do that. Doesn’t that annoy you? Wake up and complain about it, please, that would be super great of you to do.”

Her head lolled to the side a bit as he pushed at her shoulder. She was clearly breathing, but she didn’t seem to be doing anything besides that, not so much as a twitch in her eyelid. He’d laid her out on the first bit of grass he could find, a fenced-in play space for a private elementary school, which probably shouldn’t have been his top priority. But he really thought she’d be waking up soon. She’d been stunned, right? Or had the breath knocked out of her. So a quick rest, maybe a bandage or something, and she’d be back up, and appreciative of some approximation of a soft surface.

He looked up. From this vantage point, the akuma still wasn’t visible, but he could hear it explode something, off in the distance. Probably another building, or a car or something, or a bridge. He looked back down. She was extremely, unhelpfully still. The akuma needed to be stopped. And he couldn’t do it.

He hesitated, hand hovering near her ear. Taking her Miraculous seemed— violating. Like theft. And he’d be taking away whatever protection the suit was still giving her, making her even more vulnerable, maybe even making her injury more serious. What would a head wound that knocks out a superhero do to a regular person? What would she think if she came to and her Miraculous was gone?

And on the other hand, _if she_ _didn’t_ _wake up_ —

A few blocks away, someone screamed. 

He screwed up his eyes and resisted screaming himself. Okay. Ladybug, if she were awake, would probably ask Tikki what do. He could take the ring off, temporarily take her earrings, just to make Tikki appear, and ask her what to do. Maybe there was some third party who he wasn’t thinking of who could help. Maybe there was a secret wound-healing property of the Miraculouses no one had bothered to mention to him? The possibilities were endless, really. But he needed, he definitely needed, to ask.

“Claws in,” he said, and then, “ _Plagg what do I do I think I should ask Tikki maybe? Ladybug is hurt and she won’t wake up look look look—”_

“Whoa, kid, jesus, chill out,” Plagg said, and turned to look at Ladybug more closely. Then he said again, in a different tone: “Jesus. Okay, yeah, uh, probably turn into Ladybug again? That really seems like your best option here, gotta tell you. Not that I’m not great, but the Cure is probably your best bet here, and I don’t think she’s waking up anytime soon otherwise.” He whistled. “Yeah. _Nasty_ concussion. No running around and jogging the brain for this one. Here, hide the ring somewhere, okay? No one’s gonna find it by accident and unless Hawkmoth actually touches it he won’t know what it is.”

“I shouldn’t just give it to her?”

“Nnnnno. She’s unconscious. The akuma could just, like, pull it off her finger? Or, like, guess that she’s Ladybug, because she’s an unconscious teenager and Ladybug is also an unconscious teenager? Better not. Hide it under a rock or something!”

Adrien whimpered a little.

“Buck up, kid, everything’s fine. You did a good job last time, right? I’m sure you’ll do it again.”

“Haha,” Adrien said. He didn’t laugh, he just said it. Not really his best effort, but in his defense, there was a lot going on. “Okay. Uh. For sure?”

“Yeah? Come on, hurry up, the akuma might be coming this way soon.”

“Fine! Fine, okay, I’m doing it.” He took off the ring.

Adrien, after a long, cautious glance around the park, buried his ring in the woodchips under the children’s slide. On the one hand, what a terrible, terrible idea, but on the other hand, at least it was _Plagg’s_ terrible idea. When the ring was buried he scampered back again. There was no one to ask if they were sure this was okay besides Ladybug’s prone body, so he did. She didn’t reply.

He put one hand over her face while he took her earrings. He thought it was to shield her identity, but maybe he just didn’t want to have to look at her while he stole from her. She detransformed gradually, from the feet up, as he tried to avert his eyes.

The same dark jacket again, maybe— and pink pants? no, no, no, no looking, absolutely no looking— there was her hand, with its total lack of identifying features. Huge relief. Adrien loved to not find out Ladybug’s identity. Really in the all-time best activities he could be doing.

He put the earrings on.

“Hi Adrien! I thought about it and I think the best way is for you to transform yourself, so good call putting the earrings on! You could go for help but we’re on the wrong side of the city, and the sooner you heal Ladybug the better, after all! So let’s go!”

“I—” He shook his head hard. “What?”

“Adrien, what’s wrong? I already told you, it’s the best possible idea. Why are you waiting?”

“I can’t—” He cleared his throat. Then again.

“Are you worried you won’t do a good job? You’ll do a _great_ job. You were amazing last time, remember?”

“What if I don’t need to? What if I just want to?”

Tikki cocked her head.

“Tikki, I have to tell you something terrible.” Adrien could feel himself making fists in the grass. Then dropping the grass away from him again, still green but already dead. “I wanted to be Ladybug. I know it’s not right, that I should be happy being Chat. That if I’m Ladybug that means something’s wrong. But I miss feeling that way. The way it made me. Not that it felt _right_. That’s not what I mean. That’s selfish, it’s not true. I just want to be Ladybug again because it felt _good_ , and that’s not a good enough reason.”

“What?”

“What,” Adrien said, defensively. “Not wanting to use the Miraculous for the wrong reasons is a bad thing now?”

“That’s not the wrong reasons! You should want to! You should love being Ladybug! Ladybug is you!” Tikki’s encouragement was starting to have a bit of an edge.

“But how can I know? How can I trust myself? It’s not what’s right, for me. I can’t be Ladybug all the time. But I miss it. So I can’t make the right decisions, because it might not be because I need to be Ladybug. It might be because I _want_ —“

Tikki hit him with her little arms.

“Adrien,” she said, “I’m a god. If I tell you it’s right to want this, then it is. Now be Ladybug, like you’re supposed to be.”

“For the record,” Adrien said, “the thing where you make unilateral decisions about my body and secret desires without telling me is kind of weird and intrusive.”

“Well there’s a reason you’re not _always_ Ladybug.” Tikki was definitely impatient now, which was a weird contrast from the extreme bubbliness. “We wouldn’t get along at all. Now hurry up. I’m sorry it bothered you, but I’m not sorry you know what you want, and you shouldn’t be either.”

Adrien shrugged, and laughed a little, because nothing was ever, ever, ever going to be easy, especially not getting anything he wanted. But he could decide to do it anyway. He could decide to want it.

“Tikki, spots on!”

Pink light everywhere.

Adrien lifted her yo-yo.


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn’t working.

Well, it was _working_ , as in, she was Ladybug and she was fighting an akuma. She was not, however, fighting the akuma _well_. This one— she still didn’t have its name— was smart enough to know that she needed to get close if she was ever going to shut him down, and that she had to try to protect people over nearly everything else. So he wasn’t rising to the bait when Adrien tried to lure him away from populated areas, and he wasn’t risking himself to get to her Miraculous, just finding new unevacuated streets and destroying things to lure her in.

Last time, she’d been able to guess the possessed object before she called for her Lucky Charm. That still seemed like the better course of action, but it had been nearly forty-five minutes, and she was no closer to figuring it out. So it was time to hope to get really, really lucky.

The object was a bright red, black-spotted trowel. Adrien grimaced at it.

“Tikki, there aren’t even gardens here.” Tikki, understandably, was not available to comment.

Adrien once again resigned herself to operating on the “blind guessing” principle. True, sometimes it worked great, but other times you ended up believing that Chloé was Ladybug. She peered around the corner, where the akuma wasn’t even moving anymore, just waiting for her to try again. Everyone else was gone, at least, so she didn’t have to worry about any more tourists.

What was out there? A car. Another car. A third car, this one a terrible green color that sucked to look at. Buildings. A smashed car the akuma had stood on. Trash cans, trash not in the trash cans. Doors. Windows. Streetlights. Electrical wires. Electrical wires! That was something, right? That was totally something. Adrien could throw the trowel, sever a wire above the akuma, and electrocute him. All that metal plating would hurt instead of help! Sure, it could kill him, but Tikki wouldn’t tell Ladybug to kill someone! And he was an akuma, so he probably had magic resistance to damage, just like they did. The more Adrien thought about it, the surer she felt that this was the way to go.

She sprinted out into the street, covering as much ground as she dared while the akuma was still surprised. Then she dropped into her fencing lunge, wound up, and threw the trowel.

It bounced against the wires and fell into the street. The akuma laughed so much he accidentally brought another building down on himself. 

Oh, god. She totally didn’t know how to use this Lucky Charm. She wasn’t going to get it. If random feelings of confidence weren’t a real power then there was absolutely no way she was getting it before the akuma got bored and just stomped her into the street.

Ladybug would never, ever trust her again if she couldn’t handle this, not in a million years. 

Well. No. That didn’t actually seem right. Adrien was freaked out of her mind, and fucking this up severely, but on the other hand, Ladybug was not actually known for her ruthless oppression of people who asked for help with things. Everything was terrible, and this was humiliating, and also Ladybug… liked her. Okay, not— not like that. But they were friends.

Also, at this point, it had been nearly an hour, and Adrien would just feel a lot better if she could heal Ladybug’s head trauma. She’s not exactly a doctor, but Netflix’s Daredevil was definitely lying about how totally fine it was to get hit so hard you passed out. Brains were delicate! Adrien felt very confident about this concept. Really, she owed it to Ladybug to magically heal her brain swelling. And then she’d have help!

Feeling triumphant about this piece of extremely good reasoning, Adrien threw the trowel. It was only moments afterward, with holographic ladybugs still lingering on the street, that she realized how Ladybug was about to wake up: alone, in a strange alley, with no Miraculous.

“Oh, fuck,” she said. It was how she felt.

Fortunately, her extended exercise in akuma-fighting futility hadn’t ever progressed that far from their starting point. The park was only a few minutes away, as the yo-yo flies.

She wasn’t where Adrien had left her, near the edge of the park, head pillowed in the grass. A jolt of panic— Adrien felt adrenaline rise up in her throat, buzz through her eyes— Ladybug was defenseless and gone. She scanned around frantically— did someone take her? Did she wake up and try to leave?— and then saw a dark shape on the playground.

Adrien edged closer. It could be Ladybug—a dark silhouette, maybe some pink as well— but the angle was wrong, and she didn’t want to waste time if her Lady was off being kidnapped by Hawkmoth or something. On the other hand, this person was dangerously close to where she’d hidden the ring, though there was absolutely no reason to actually look for it there. She circled closer just as the figure straightened up, holding something to the light. Oh, hey! Adrien thought, finally recognizing them. There’s Marinette! Maybe she knows what hap—

Adrien honestly wasn’t sure if she—

Haha, great!

Meanwhile Marinette had put on the ring. Adrien could hear her talking. “ _Bonjour,_ Plagg!”— it was Marinette’s voice, yes, and suddenly it was Ladybug’s as well, because it had been Ladybug’s voice the whole time. “It’s good to see you again. I guess this means my _chaton_ is out with my yo-yo? Well, I can’t let Ladybug fight alone, can I? Claws out, please!”

Somewhere through this new terrible problem Adrien noticed how unbelievably improbable this all was. Ladybug had _intuited which patch of woodchips_ Adrien had hidden the ring underneath. This couldn’t only mean Adrien had always been severely out of her league, Lucky Charm-wise. Clearly Ladybug wasn’t incredibly lucky at all; she didn’t need to be, if she was the inductive reasoning champion of the world. Ladybug: the world’s greatest detective. Maybe Adrien, as the isolated son— she flinched at herself. Maybe Adrien, as the isolated child of rich, somewhat dead parents, was the obvious heir to Batman’s legacy. But Ladybug _earned_ it.

Her costume was more like an all-black version of the Ladybug suit than like Chat Classic. It was minimal, skin-tight, with high-tech green detailing. A long, long, long braid instead of the tail, which Adrien thought was a weird choice, but maybe Ladybug had always wanted six feet of hair, who was she to judge. It was almost different enough from her own costume that Adrien didn’t feel sick to her teeth with envy. But of course the magic could tell that Marinette was such an incredible girl.

It occurred to her that Ladybug still didn’t know she was here. Probably there should be some kind of entrance line. Instead she just coughed.

Ladybug turned and smiled brilliantly. “Oh, kitten, you found me!” She ran at Adrien, caught her up in a hug. “So— I don’t really know what happened, and I’m so, so sorry I left you alone again. _Great_ thinking with the hiding place for the ring, by the way. Although—” she looked down at the ring on her hand and back up. “I guess we could switch back now, if you wanted?”

“Well, I’ll need to transform back in a second anyway, I used Miraculous Ladybug to heal you so you’d wake up. I…” Adrien coughed. “It’s possible I couldn’t actually defeat the akuma on my own.”

“That makes total sense!” Ladybug said. Then she frowned. “Actually… would you mind keeping the earrings? Just until we’ve taken out the akuma? I’ve already transformed anyway, and…” She waved her hand, apparently trying to indicate some way that it would make sense for them not to just switch back into the roles they were good at.

Adrien bit the inside of her cheek. She looked at the ground. She thought really, really hard about selfishness, and their responsibility to the city, coming before all personal needs.

But if this was it— and how often would it come up again, the chance to be… Ladybug— to look like this, like … Ladybug— maybe it could last a little longer. They’d both be there. Marinette could solve the Lucky Charm this time even if she wasn’t the one summoning it. Never again, after this, Adrien promised herself. She could never let herself do it again. But she’d already— agreeing with Tikki that it was okay to want to be… Ladybug had made something shift in her thinking. It was too hard to stop now, with her last act as an hour of pure failure.

So, she’d go off and feed Tikki. She’d transform back. One last success as Ladybug.

As a girl.

“Go on, kitten,” Marinette said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll be right here when you’re ready!”


	8. Chapter 8

They sat next to each other on the riverbank.

After the akuma was purified— the man was a construction worker, apparently, who’d lost his job with the cancellation of a government contract and decided to take his revenge on the city— Marinette— no, Ladybug— had stopped her, with a hand on her arm.

“Before you go, after we switch back,” she’d said, “can we chat for a bit? I’d love to talk to you for a while.”

Adrien hadn’t wanted to, but it was Ladybug. She wasn’t going to say no. And she was being rewarded for it: Ladybug was sitting closer than usual, knee brushing hers. They sat for several minutes, watching the sunset. Adrien felt almost relaxed before she finally heard Ladybug draw in a breath.

“Chat,” she said, too gently; Adrien wasn’t sure she could stand it. “Tikki says you could ask Plagg.”

“What?”

“You could ask Plagg to do it again. The magic, where they figure out what kind of hero you’re going to be. Or Tikki could talk to him first. Actually, if you’d rather talk to her about it again, I could go and—”

“No,” Adrien said, cutting her off, and then cringed. “I mean. It wasn’t— Tikki’s sweet, but I don’t think she quite understands? About humans? When I talked to her before, it wasn’t quite… not that I’m _ungrateful_ ,” she added in sudden horror, “just…”

“No, I get it,” Ladybug said, and laughed a little. “They don’t always understand about humans. That’s exactly it.

“But think about it, okay? I don’t know how it is for you, in your civilian life. At home. But here…”

She looked straight ahead. “Being Ladybug means a lot to me. Helping people, obviously, but also just getting to be a different person. In my personal life I’m, well. I’m not quite as confident. I mean,” she said, “don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty great! I like my life! I’m an artist, I love my friends, people like me, but in _certain, very specific areas_ , it’s possible that I’m kind of incompetent.”

Adrien made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat.

“No, really,” Ladybug said. “Mostly I just— people I have feelings for, situations I’m vulnerable in, or I’m not sure about, I kind of… lose control. Ladybug doesn’t really lose control. I don’t have to work so hard to get myself to do what I need to do. I don’t know if that’s all me, or a power Tikki gives me, or what, but…”

Ladybug turned toward Adrien. Adrien stared back, trying to focus on Ladybug’s words, and not just the shape of her jaw highlit against her hair. It was only when Ladybug shook her head that Adrien realized they’d been looking at each other, not speaking, for a long time.

“Sorry,” Ladybug said. “I kind of lost the plot there. I just meant to say that it’s okay for Chat Noir to have parts of yourself that you’re not ready for in the rest of your life, or that you can’t do in the rest of your life. Uh. If that applies. I know it’s weird because we’re public figures, so maybe that’s backwards and you’d rather be out anywhere else besides as Chat. But Chat Noir doesn’t owe it to anybody _not_ to be a girl. That’s all I wanted to tell you. That you could ask Plagg, and Chat can look— however you want to look.”

“I know,” Adrien said. She felt almost devastated. She’d expected to have to argue for it, and Ladybug had come and laid her whole self bare, all her defenses made obvious and easy. She couldn’t think.

“I need you to— I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have to think.”

“What?” Ladybug said. “It’s okay, you don’t have to be sorry for anything.”

“I _do_ ,” Adrien said, burying her face in her hands. “I do, and not just—”

“This isn’t anything you’re doing wrong,” Ladybug said, looking terribly earnest.

“No, when I came back—” Adrien’s voice cracked. “I used Miraculous Ladybug. Then I realized I’d left you to wake up alone, without your Miraculous. So I rushed back. And when I saw you weren’t where I’d left you, I… I forgot. I looked around without thinking about how you’d look. That you’d be detransformed. It was only for a few seconds, but. I’ve met Marinette before.”

Ladybug froze. Adrien couldn’t look at her. She could hear it when she hung her head down; when Ladybug huffed a long, slow sigh through her teeth.

“Okay,” she said. Also slow. “Okay. Okay.”

Adrien felt sick. 

“I’m sorry. You can— I’ll do whatever you want, okay?”

“Right,” she said. As distant as she’d ever been. “I’ll have to think. I wasn’t ready for this. Why wasn’t I ready for this?” That was Marinette, Adrien thought, that edge of panic, and had to wince at herself. If she had any decency she’d forget she ever knew this, not look for connections between her friend and her partner.

“Ladybug, if you need time… please take whatever you need. Our other conversation can wait, okay? This is more important.”

“No, I…” Ladybug shook her head. “I wanted us to talk. This is a lot for me to deal with, but I still want to talk.”

“I have to go home anyway,” Adrien said in a rush. “I have to go, so you should too. Take some space if you need to, okay? My problems will still… I’ll still have to deal with it later. I’m the one who screwed up.”

Ladybug bit her lip. “If you’re sure… I guess I could think for a while, yeah. You’re really going home?”

“Yeah, it’s already—” Adrien pointed at the horizon. “We missed dinner.”

“Right. Of course.” Ladybug stood up, and then turned back. She still looked distant, shocked, but her hand on Adrien’s shoulder was strong and warm. “I’ll see you later, kitten.”

Adrien nodded. She looked out at the water.


	9. Chapter 9

An hour and a half later she was still looking at the water, streetlit instead of sunlit and starting to chill the air. It wasn’t even clear why she was looking at it, really. Water was water. Normal. Damp. Technically changing, sure, but not in a meaningful way; it was still going to be the river if she kept looking all night.

To her surprise she realized she was waiting for Ladybug to come back. Which was so completely embarrassing, she thought, hunching forward into her knees. It was exactly the kind of thing she should know not to expect anymore, and not only because she’d told her to go, though obviously that was the largest part of it.

“Okay,” she muttered to herself. “That’s enough.” She felt strangely angry, impulsive, ready to do something terrible. “Plagg, claws in.” The flash of green light again, and he floated in front of her, one eyebrow raised.

“I want you to look again,” she muttered at the ground.

“What’s that?” Plagg said. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“You—” She smacked her hand on the ground and stood. “I want you to do it again! Finding the transformation! I want to be Chat Noir the way I was Ladybug, and I know you know what I mean. I waited! Afterward, I waited for you to show me. Isn’t that your job? I thought I would be different now. That it would help. But you didn’t help me! Maybe you weren’t even watching!” Plagg was just looking at her. “What, you can’t do it? It’s only because I was vacationing as Ladybug, and if I’m my real self, if I’m Chat, then I can’t— then I have to be—” Her fists were clenched. Her breath came in little clawing bursts out of her throat.

“Chat Noir’s not ‘your real self’, kitten,” he said, kind. She snarled. “It’s not that I didn’t see what Tikki did, okay? But after the first time, you have to ask. That’s all. But I needed you to ask.” He held out a limb, impatient.

Adrien burst into tears. Oh, she thought. There’s the terrible thing. That’s what I was going to do.

Plagg waited with her. He didn’t speak.

Finally she was done, though she stayed there, looking at how she’d soaked the cuffs of her shirt. What her father would say, if he knew about the shirt! The same thing he said to every model who spoiled a piece of clothing: “It wasn’t enough for you just to wear it?”

“All right,” she said. She held her hand out, like he’d wanted. “Claws out.”

Adrien had always thought that her memory of her first transformation had been altered by emotion, intensified, made strange. The details had been exactly the same, and yet the first time was magnified, like she wasn’t just taking in the powers Plagg gave her, but something even beyond. That, she figured, was just the shock of discovering she could do something important, instead of being a mannequin to smear with Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation #3 for the rest of her natural life.

She was wrong, actually. The first time becoming Chat _had_ been greater, and stranger, than the rest. Like this time, as Plagg helped her change, the way she’d always wanted to.

The costume, she thought critically, hadn’t changed much; Marinette might, for inscrutable reasons of her own, want an incredibly long braid, but Adrien was pretty fond of the tail. Chat Noir was a great look, if she said so herself, and she always had. This was _definitely_ more her than the Ladybug outfit, for instance; she felt more armored, more ready to block a hit, not delicate or exposed. The shoulder padding was slimmed down only subtly, the belt circled her waist instead of her hips. Her hair— she could feel when she turned— _swished_ , a high ponytail like Chloé’s. She’d always been jealous of Chloé’s hair, really, now that she thought about it; she’d assumed it was purely professional admiration. One year, for Chloé’s birthday, Adrien had spent nearly four full days buying hair accessories: combs, tiaras, a jeweled chain to braid into it like an elf princess. Adrien didn’t usually have that much patience for shopping, but she’d thought maybe she was just especially grateful for Chloé’s friendship that year. It had been so surprisingly easy to spend hours thinking about ways to arrange long blonde hair.

Despite this setback, Adrien felt confident that her observational skills were only going to improve going forward.

It was demoralizing that Ladybug landed on the roof _immediately_ after that thought, but things could still improve.

“Somehow, I thought you might still be here,” she said.

“You don’t have to.” Adrien felt all the ease leave her again. She felt quiet and stupid, more Adrien than Chat, more herself than either.

“I’m sorry I did this to you,” Adrien said. “Learning your identity. You never wanted that.”

“I didn’t want it, sure,” she said. “It was safer, and I was scared. But I don’t regret you getting to know me, you know. If you’d tried on purpose, that would be wrong. That would hurt. But I know you wouldn’t try to do that. And it might not be quite as safe, but…” She frowned. “This already isn’t a very safe thing for us to be doing. I was unconscious for an _hour_ today. What if you’d needed to take me to a hospital? It might be safer in some ways to be secret, but having someone know can help too.”

Adrien felt almost dazed. She’d known, of course, how much braver Ladybug was than anyone else; how brave Marinette was, how willing to stand up for herself, for anyone who needed it. But this was something else. Her lady didn’t have to decide to be over it in an hour. It wasn’t right.

“I want you to know,” Adrien started, “when I told you I wanted to be just like you, that was only partially an excuse about the uh. The transformation. I’ve always admired you, and just as much now, knowing you’re Marinette. You’re—“ She coughed. “Uh, sorry. I shouldn’t be too specific, but. Even just from what I know about Marinette as Chat, I admire you a lot. But I know that this means more than ever that you wouldn’t be interested in me. And that I couldn’t come out as my civilian self anyway, because it would make it too obvious, and _you_ deserve to keep these parts of our lives separate just as much as I do. You shouldn’t have to rearrange your life as Marinette around my— problems. So I want you to know I won’t do anything to make it harder.”

“Tell me, then,” she said. “It’s more strategically important to keep my identity secret than yours, anyway. And it’s more important to me to give you what freedom I can than to—”

“It’s _not_ more important,” Adrien said, “and besides, it’s not— I don’t want you to feel any more obligated toward me that I’ve already forced you to be. You don’t need to keep any more of my secrets.”

“I do,” Ladybug said. “I owe you just as much as you owe me. We made a choice to protect each other, and it’s worthwhile to me to honor that, no matter what. But I’ll let you think about it, if you’re not ready.”

Ladybug reached out to take her hand, and squeezed it.

“And for the record,” Ladybug— _giggled_ , which Adrien had never heard before. Or, no, she’d heard it all the time, from Marinette. Ladybug put her head down and laughed. Then she straightened up.

“I have to. Uh. Kitten.” Ladybug put her hands on Adrien’s shoulders. Then moved one hand to Adrien’s hair. Adrien could feel her wind her fingers into it.

“It doesn’t make me _less_ interested in you. That you’re a girl. It, ah. It really…” Her voice trailed off. Adrien couldn’t think of anything to do besides be very, very still, in case she reminded Ladybug of something else they needed to be doing right now.

“Tell me if you don’t want me to, okay?” Ladybug leaned in. Adrien felt her press her face to the side of Adrien’s throat. Adrien turned her face to Ladybug’s, not able to think. Not ready to guess.

“Please,” she whispered.

Ladybug kissed her.

* * *

A week later, Adrien caught Alya at the door to the classroom. She raised an eyebrow and waited while Adrien wrung her hands, did a little silent pantomime of anxiety, and then squared her shoulders, to feel determined. She nodded firmly, to really emphasize how determined she definitely was now. Alya raised the other eyebrow.

“Alya, can you switch desks with me for today? I need to ask Marinette something.”

Alya— bounced. Which was fine! Alya could bounce in response to things Adrien said, if she wanted. That seemed within the bounds of reasonable behavior. Okay, it didn’t, but Adrien couldn’t make a strong case for her own understanding of what was normal to do.

“Is that a yes!” she yelped. Oops. Not enough shoulder-squaring, possibly.

“Yes that’s a yes!” Alya whispered and screamed at the same time, which was also great. Adrien was so glad to be there, having this regular conversation with her good friend Alya. What a fun, special time they were having together.

“You’re in luck, too, she’s here early. Go talk to her, Adrien, go, go, go—” Alya physically pushed her into the classroom. Which was useful! Great helping. Alya… loved to help? Alya loved to help. Oh, hey, she thought, it’s Marinette. Marinette was at her desk! Where Adrien was also going to sit! Hahaha! Hahahahaha—

Adrien sat down next to Marinette. She flushed and looked down at the desk. “Can— c-can I— Hi!” she said, not making eye contact. “Hi. Adrien. Hi.”

Oh, right. It _was_ Marinette. Adrien honestly kind of enjoyed being the more conversationally functional person for a change. It was reassuring, like when someone else also spills water down the front of their shirt at dinner. Their multi-layered secret identity shirt.

“Hi, Marinette. Can we go to your house for lunch? I need to talk about something personal, and I…” She giggled a little, and dropped her voice to a whisper. This was fun, actually. Knowing something good, for once. Being ready to tip her hand. “I just have this really, really strong feeling that you’re good at keeping secrets.”

Marinette looked at her, straight on, and started to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> possible transphobia/dysphoria warning: Adrien's body changes unexpectedly during a transformation; Adrien at one point refers to this as "turning into a girl". Because of ~magic~, this is in fact a subconcious expression of Adrien's own feelings that Tikki is "helpfully" bringing out, so it's more of a nudge for Adrien to figure some things out than anything else, but the way Adrien thinks of it initially might be triggering for some readers. Adrien's feelings about this are also going to evolve over the course of the story. For me personally, the experience of being visibly/behaviorally gender nonconforming coming before the understanding of how or why one wants that was a very real part of my transition; my hope is to honor that without causing harm to people with different experiences of their gender. This is not a pedagogical narrative about What Being Trans Means, I'm just writing about a person having a specific and individual gender experience.


End file.
